VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA-Jonah and the Whale, Time Bomb, And Five of Us Are Left, The Cyborg

Washington Gazette reports that Russian scientists Dr. Katya Markhova and her adventurous aide Alexi join Nelson to salvage what they can from an undersea Russian lab wrecked by whales (?). Alexi is at 540 fathoms in the diving bell when Chip reports whales migrating. Alexi calls them in Russian and Katya has to talk to him (doesn't anyone know Russian on board or in the missile room?). A whale hits the bell with his nose and cracks the window, killing Alexi.

Act One

Alexi is brought out (this and other images from VOYAGE-including THING FROM INNER SPACE was used in TV 55's third and later promo for VOYAGE-set to IN THE MOOD by Glenn Miller) after the bell is brought up. Katya wants to ready another dive--she will go herself. She wants to recover what they can from the wrecked lab--info that will help others. Kowalski tells her the bell is ready--for testing. Riley talks to her in surfer "dialect"to which Ski tells her is a language all its own. She asks him if surfer is one of the United States and Ski answers--yeah, it's a state of being way out. Whales have a one track mind when migrating--they go right through you, not around, Nelson reminds Markhova. As a scientist, Nelson gives her his sympathy but she doesn't want it. Her country doesn't care if risks are taken but Nelson tells her if she had been more patient--Alexi would still be alive. Alexi was more than her colleague--she tells Nelson he was her good friend. She reminds Nelson about going over his head--she's done it once before to both their countries' leaders. Nelson asks Ski if he would say it is safe enough to volunteer to go down. Ski gulps but says he would. Katya tells him thank you but Nelson reveals he will be her pilot. In the lab, she tells him they can learn how whales use their homing devices for their use and she also suspects Nelson resents sharing it with her country. Nelson smiles, "Or perhaps we don't need it as badly as you do."She calls him a bureaucratic dunderhead--one of many who get in the way of progress worrying over the loss of life. He counters with the fact that they believe every life is important. She worries over their war with the population explosion--using the homing devices they can build under the sea--and build ships that will better even Seaview. Needless and careless accidents set them back even more, Nelson says. She admits she was more lab and test tubes; Alexi was the more adventurous type (the ending of this scene is partly filmed through the fish tank at the other end of the lab as the pair leave the room). The two go down in the diving bell. She sees water coming in between the joints. Nelson tells her it is the pressure squeezing the excess out--adding that if too much pressure is put on...she is unnerved by it all, not helped by Nelson's added comments--but she really asked for them. Patterson is monitoring the whales (is he named yet?). The bell reaches the wreckage and Katya takes photographs. Chip calls about a whale...a big one coming at 50 K. Katya protests: the lab may be destroyed in a day--the time Nelson tells Katya that they can come back. Crane expels shark repellant in the missile tubes to blind the whale. The whale swallows the diving bell and the winch rope snaps off!

Act Two

Seaview dives after the whale (8 windows on Seaview). If they kill the whale, the two inside may die too. Crane uses a warhead with anodyne. He comments about going in after the Admiral to a shocked Sharkey, Riley, and Ski. Nelson wakes up and then gets Katya up also. Her camera smashed, she goes on bashing Nelson as a blunderer. He admits he is a bit out of practice. She wants to go back and descend with an experienced pilot. She only realizes where they are when Nelson tells her to look outside. They have air for 92 minutes. Nelson tells her the archelocetic whale is large enough to swallow them--it was supposed to be extinct...but isn't. Nelson talks of Jonah which she calls a myth. She's read the Bible...and claims Jonah was a poor sailor but he would have made a good Admiral. Crane, Riley, and Ski look at a chart of the whale's anatomy while the whale closes in on the Seaview--head on. Riley says, "Man, dig that fish!"They shake and the whale hits the side of the sub. The lights go red but Crane, wanting to beach the whale on a ledge, has more anodyne fired into its nose. They watch on the screen as it lands on the shelf, "quiet as a baby,"as Chip puts it. Seaview now has two windows. Sharkey tells Crane the cable they use is made of titanium. The pressure is 1.47. The jaws are open but if he tightens them, Chip is to fire more anodyne sedative. Sharkey says a poignant goodbye telling them to bring those suits back in one piece, playfully punches Riley's shoulder, and closes the hatch on them.

Act Three

Crane, Riley, and Ski dive out and swim through the jaws (which look kind of fake from being viewed from inside the whale out and are also out of scale). Chip and Sparks monitor them. After the men go in, the jaws close so Chip has 500 CCs of anodyne at one half charge fired in. Nelson had hit his head--she worries about him but then her windpipe constricts--she's plain scared. Nelson wonders if they should the rocket launcher to blast their way out--it is a ten to one chance against it working..and even if it does, they will have to swim their way to the surface without knowing how deep they are-they could be crushed. Nelson can also fire the petroleum in the ballast tanks which would make the whale discharge the bell out--maybe--this is what Jonah used. Problem with the rocket launcher plan: the blast could kill anyone coming to rescue them. She calls Nelson the perfect bureaucrat and Jonah a fairy tale. Nelson tells her about a doctor named James Bartley who spent 24 hours inside a sperm whale in 1891. He was bleached white when he came out and was quite mad. Nelson tells Katya that just because his people hold every life dear, "...they'll risk anything to try and save us."Ski gets trapped between blubber and muscle. Crane tells Riley to stow the knife and he uses ultrasonic waves from his radio to free Ski. Sparks loses radio contact--there are 22 minutes left. Jonah prayed to the author of his misfortune and Nelson quotes the Bible--Jonah was faithful and called the truthful one and this saved Nineva. Katya sets off the launcher but Nelson breaks the top off, stopping it. Riley gets his foot stuck now. Ski wants to use his knife since Crane is not with them now--he went on to check ahead. Chip tells Sparks that in ten to twelve minutes--the air in the bell will be gone. He adds that the three man rescue team should turn back...if they can.

Act Four

Crane uses the laser gun to free Riley but the pain makes him do some violent things both inside and out, Crane's cable gets stuck in the whale. The whale, in some pain, moves closer to the edge of the underwater cliff--if it falls off and goes deeper they will all die. Nelson tells Katya to pray hard, fixing the turn on switch. He starts the rocket launcher on the timer, hoping it won't blow out the port holes. Just before this, Katya tells him she hopes the rescue party will not be out there and killed. She tells Nelson that she and Alexi were to be married. He said to her, almost his last words to her, that people like us (Alexi and Katya) and like you (Nelson)--we should be friends."Crane bangs on the porthole. Nelson tells him to get in quick. Riley, Ski, and Crane free the cable and attach it onto the bell. Sharkey locks the winch. They let it out three feet per second as the whale goes off the ledge, moves head first on the cable---vertically like a fish on a hook. It fights the winch and moves down a bit. The bell seems stuck in his mouth but pops out eventually. It is a victorious moment.

Tag

Crane tells everyone, sitting in the nose, that they are getting calls from press services around the world, wanting to know what it was like down there. Markova tells them her impressions were recorded thousands of years ago by Jonah...and she and Nelson quote Jonah, smiling at each other.

NOTES: The innards of the whale is quite impressive, the model work and whale and bell is also quite nice, and the action moves along at a great pace....act one setting up the conflict between Nelson and Markova, act two being the Seaview chasing the whale, act three having Crane and the other two enter the whale and encountering problems, and act four the main part of the rescue. It is difficult not to think of FANTASTIC VOYAGE which I feel had some of its sets borrowed or stolen from trash (if behind the scenes stories can be believed) for the whale (also the boarding tube in FANTASTIC VOYAGE is used in LOST IN SPACE-THE SPACE DESTRUCTORS so perhaps this was what was being referred to on that particular behind the scenes story.) It is difficult not to like this tale...it is so bizarre and impossible! Yet, Nelson was correct--there really was a man swallowed by a whale. James Bartley, an Englishman was so on August 25, 1891 off of the vessel Star of the East. Bartley was a steersman who fell in the water along with others who had hurt the whale with a bomb lance. Later in the day after the jaws closed over him, Bartley's whale was found dead and was dragged to the whaling ship where the crew removed its blubber. This took about two days. He was unconscious within but alive when they took him out. His body was purple but after he regained consciousness and later recovered, his body returned to normal. All the facts had been verified and published in a scientific journal. His mind was abnormally clear until he lost consciousness from the pressure and heat of the whale's body. He recounted how he could feel living fish all around him inside the whale and how the canopy of pink and white closed over him. He also couldn't really move at all. Very strange...but true...and apparently he hadn't gone totally mad...and if he was at all, fully recovered!

TIME BOMB

Writer-William Reed Woodfield, Allan Balter

Dir-Sobey Martin

Music-Leith Stevens

Teaser

A German man and a Russian woman called Litchka watch Chinese Li Tung demonstrate a new method of blowing something up. Distilled water combined with unstable cesium and injected into a body will make that body become a living bomb. He shows how this is done on a model of a body. In the circulatory system, it remains harmless until triggered by proximity to a nuclear reactor--it will then explode with 50 times more power than an atomic bomb. The model, introduced to a small nuclear cube, explodes. Their plan: cause an American to trigger a war between Russia and the United States from which they will emerge the rulers of the world.

Act One

Seaview is on an official visit to San Cristobal but this is canceled. Nelson and a crewman enter Flying Sub. Nelson goes through the Flying Sub checklist with Crane above on Seaview in extreme detail. This includes exterior hatch opening, jet intakes, rocket assist, watertight hatches, and fuel of 500 pounds. This checklist comes directly from William Reed Woodfield's (the writer for TIME BOMB and the unaired THE SURFERS) script for THE SURFERS which was supposedly unfilmed in its entirety. In THE SURFERS Crane and Nelson are both in the Flying Sub and go through this checklist there before leaving in it. The unnamed crewman that is in the seat with Nelson in TIME BOMB is not shown much once he sits down and certainly not much once the checklist starts. This makes me wonder if the scene was originally shot for THE SURFERS and re-doctored up for TIME BOMB. Katie at NIMR (we are never really told if this is the same agent portrayed by the same actress, Susan Flannery, in the first season episode THE TRAITOR), calls on the vidphone. Crane tells her it is no fun to scramble alone. A coded message is from Vice Admiral Johnson--there is a Russian subsurface nuclear device. Nelson tells him this has been tried before. Johnson tells him this one is self activating, multidirectional, and is 200 megatons which can make the owners own the world. It makes all other weapons obsolete including the one Nelson is working on now (later episodes such as THE MACHINES STRIKE BACK, KILLERS OF THE DEEP, DEADLY CREATURE BELOW, and THE DEADLIEST GAME) feature some of this which is left over from DOOMSDAY's nuclear alerts of the first season. In a Russian station in Gorov on the Black Sea, the Russians are perfecting this weapon. Johnson brings Nelson to Triamon Gallery in Washington DC where he meets Litchka, supposedly a US agent. Nelson comments he doesn't understand the paintings they are seeing but a map is put into one smaller painting giving the lines and latitude of the nuclear station. The hydro jet races will be Nelson's cover. The base is partly in the water to use sea water to cool the reactors. Nelson sees one painting, as a cover for their conversation as Mother Earth embracing the sea. Johnson returns to get Litchka back to the Ambassador. Nelson is given a Soviet ID, passport, ration book, leave papers--he will pose as a Russian sailor on leave, a uniform as such which will be sent ahead to Seaview, Soviet brand cigarettes (each containing a tiny cylinder with two minutes of oxygen which fits into a rebreather and a mouth grip and can be assembled in 40 seconds), a Soviet time piece which has been rebuilt with a super thin unit and micro energizer to fire lethal darts). Why lethal? As Nelson leaves the building, a boy, seen from behind (and wearing a helmet that will later be used on TIME TUNNEL's THE KIDNAPPERS) play-shoots Nelson. A blond mother takes the toy gun away---and the boy takes off the helmet--he is not a boy at all but a midget--and a full adult! Both mother and boy are agents! He injected Nelson!

Act Two

Seaview is in the Black Sea with two Soviet Odessa class destroyers above. The screen in the Control Room has a map of the world. Chip is told to have Seaview hug the bottom at 90 feet down. This may not be deep enough to avoid the Destroyers--which may hit the Seaview antenna array. Seaview also rigs for silent running but we still hear the familiar pop sound it makes outside it. The Flying Sub takes off from the water and this time, we see sparks flying out the rear. It flies in dark clouds at night. Crane flies; Nelson drops out the bottom floor hatch with a parachute. Soon, he is in Russia in a sailor's outfit. Police come, check his ID and ask him about his train. He has only a 72 hour pass and the claim he will waste most of it walking to Gorov. They take him: at first worrying Nelson but they are giving him a lift. The soldier, as he puts Nelson into the car, sounds as if his explanation was dubbed in after the scene was filmed--giving us the explanation far too early to cause us much concern. Johnson and his men have the midget man and a tape of what he is doing. A doctor is there also, getting a confession (?) perhaps. Johnson calls to get word to Litchka to stop Nelson from going to the reactor in Gorov. She gets the message, using a small painting with holes in it to read it. She smokes (gag!) and burns the message. In the streets, a soldier knocks Nelson's hat off (are these the same two who gave him the lift? It doesn't appear that they are) and despite what may look like more trouble brewing, the two soldiers that are near him--the one who knocked off the hat, are being playful--they are drunk and sometime later they carry Nelson, who acts drunk also, to the door he says is his destination. The soldiers guess that this is his girl's door and not his own. Nelson gets them to leave and goes into Litchka's apartment. She calls him Alexi (JONAH AND THE WHALE?) for the benefit of the soldiers overhearing) and lets him in. He admires her hanging paintings. She tells him she loves freedom and beauty--but really is a fanatic about both. She and Nelson kiss. Later, we see her descend her stairs from her bedroom--with Nelson sleeping on the couch (hey, this isn't Capt. Kirk!). She checks him with a geiger counter which shows he has the cesium in him, it clicks, and she seems very pleased indeed.

Act Three

Johnson tells Crane aboard a surfaced Seaview that Litchka claimed Nelson never arrived. Crane suspects she is a double agent. Johnson sets up Crane as a reporter for Picture World Magazine covering the hydro jet races. Crane admits he is a fair photographer. Johnson sends Katie to pose as his caption writer, Crane pleased it is her. She also calls Sharkey by his first name--Francis--to take her things in. He tells her everyone calls him Sharkey, so she does. Katie shows Crane his gadgets: a flash film camera with smokebombs, handle, breathing masks and units contained within the equipment, a lens brush which is the antidote to neutralize the cesium. Lee's orders are to stop Nelson whatever the cost: Lee's lens mount is a high powered rifle to kill the Admiral if Nelson is too far away to neutralize the cesium. Nelson is sent to Velsinka Karma (?), a man he is to take the place of in the races; then Nelson is to roll over his boat and swim to the station. At 20 feet is an intake pipe which water is used to cool the reactor. This will allow him to swim to the entrance. Crane and Katie arrive, Crane telling Katie there is no such thing as secret police in this country (Russia). The driver knew exactly where to take them when they requested to go to Litchka's. Katie plants a bug in Litchka's apartment after they meet her. They use a radio in a camera to hear her call someone. Katie takes out a gun. The pair force Litchka to attend the races with them. Crane spots Nelson in the jet and takes out the rifle. Litchka urges him to kill Nelson--if he gets near the reactor, they will all die when it blows up.

Act Four

Crane cannot do it. Nelson tips over his jet. Crane's limo driver is supposedly taken ill and a new driver is at the car. Crane needs equipment from the trunk--he lies, getting the driver under the trunk hood, hitting him down with hit as the agent starts to take out a gun. Katie tells Crane that Litchka is learning to co-exist---via Katie's gun. Litchka tells them how to get to the station. Katie fakes a stalled car while Crane and Litchka hide in the back seat, Litchka at gun point. Katie sprays one guard unconscious over her engine hood. Crane quietly instructs her to get the other guard over to the car. She does and Crane sneaks out and hits him down. Katie hides the car and they will go to the dock. She will call Morton to bring the Flying Sub to the water as close as he can. Nelson in the pipe emerges but has to fight and apparently kill a man soldering the top of the joints. Crane gets a guard's uniform and chokes another guard at the entrance down (lots of death in this one? Unless they are just all unconscious-??!). Nelson comes up and is about to shoot a guard from behind but the broken crystal on the device make it inoperative and good thing: the guard he was about to kill was Lee! Nelson jumps him and they fight--Lee ending up on his back. When Nelson sees the helmet off Lee, he stops. Lee explains the whole thing. Nelson still wants to see inside the reactor and gets in. A guard finds the stripped other guard unconscious (we hope and not dead!). Nelson emerges and they run as alarms go off and guards give chase. They run to the car where Nelson asks Katie playfully, "Who's minding the Institute?"She smiles and drives to the dock. They throw smoke bombs as other cars arrive. Nelson gives Litchka one last look as she pleads to be taken with them. Lee tells him they only have three masks. The trio dive into the water and swim as Litchka is taken prisoner. The other men fire machine guns into the water.

Tag

The three swim to the Flying Sub and go in. After telling Johnson to listen to him for a minute, Nelson tells Johnson to contact Russia and explain about their being at the Russian 's Nuclear Powered Space Probe lab, just being about their protecting it from being destroyed by a plot to start a war between Russia and the US.

NOTES: Jill Wells, a marvelous fan fiction writer, has written a sequel to this episode where Litckha resurfaces some time later---with a baby girl in tow--Nelson's daughter! Well thought out fan fiction! TIME BOMB is typical of the early second season and most of the second season...well thought out complex, if somewhat flawed and rushed tales...but very enjoyable. It might have meant more if Nelson and Litchka really fell in love; however the story is very good and entertains through out with some surprise twists and coy spy jokes. I'd swear the Seaview dock appeared as the Soviet street Crane and Katie had their driver stop on as they race to the races. The sets for the whole episode are very, very good...the art gallery, Johnson's office, the races, the jets themselves...all very unlimited compared to the later episodes of season three...which almost always take place only on Seaview and the Flying Sub and other already existing sets. While the sets here may be from other productions, they at least vary in many ways. Leith Stevens gives us an adequate score although he has done better in this series and other series. The episode also used many scores from other episodes such as JONAH AND THE WHALE. The name Johnson is used quite a bit on VOYAGE. A good episode but awfully violent.

...AND FIVE OF US ARE LEFT

Writer-Robert Vincent Wright

Dir-Harry Harris

Music-Lenny Hayton-(includes often later used Flying Sub music)

Teaser

July 20, 1945--the US Tetra picks up a Japanese Lieutenant Nakamura out of the ocean. The Tetra is bombed by destroyers dropping depth charges and sinks. One man, Hill leaves his post as the ship is flooded and goes down, a bottle floating inside it.

Act One

A new report dated Nov. 16, 1973 tells of a bottle found on a beach and brought to Nelson. Nelson examines the bottle which was from the Tetra, lost at the close of the World War II, 28 years ago. The Navy lab tested it and it is authentic. The area of where the Tetra went down was combed--with no luck finding anything. All liberty parties are recalled. Nelson says, "You know, Capt. Crane, always prepared."Crane is kissing a girl with some foreign accent named Brenda near his car and the ocean. Sharkey shows up and calls him to shove off at O.600. Brenda puts a hat him telling him that her chaperon was imaginary--his wasn't. Nelson and he address eight to nine officer in the control room. Hill, the one survivor, now dead, blamed Lt. Ryan for the loss of the Tetra. Sharkey brings down a new man named Frank Werden--he's been trained in the new sub scanner but has to align it first. The note found in the bottle gave the latitude and longitude and was written 140 days ago by Lt. Ryan--there are five men left alive. These include James Ryan, Tony Wilson (related to Mark?), Yeoman Burger Johnson, Corpsman Cliff Bates and Esaka Nakamura. In an undersea cave, they cook fish. Eight years ago Sims and York died in a cave in they tried to dig out. Ryan is thankful that the new cave they are building isn't shale-like. Riley asks Frank if he wants to play cards and tries to be nice as only he can. Frank remains cold and isolated. Nelson and Frank take off in the Flying Sub after Frank fixed the scanner trouble--a refraction circuit. Nakamura wants to take the ill Johnson's place in digging a new cave out but Johnson tells him he's already worked way beyond his share. Nakamura still believes his people will come for them. While Johnson and Bates are in the cave the volcano blasts forth several times, dirt coming down.

Act Two

The Flying Sub transmission to Seaview is better than ever. Nelson and Frank fly over the crater in the Flying Sub. Bates, below, is dead, The men pull Johnson out and hear a weird sound--the Flying Sub. They recall when a man named Smith ("Oh dear!") heard voices and tried to climb the walls, out of his mind. Nakamura tells them to have faith. Nelson and Frank find an underwater cave and submerge. Crane warns them about the seismograph which Riley reported to him about--the volcano could blow. A current sweeps the Flying Sub into it and their transmission to Seaview is cut off. Nakamura appear to the other three survivors in his war uniform. Ryan forgot they were enemies. They are friends now and have been through a lot together. The men see the Flying Sub surface in the cavern near the old Tetra wreck. Ryan notices that something is wrong with it. It is turned on its side.

Act Three

Nelson wakes Frank up and hears tapping. Ryan and Wilson carry Frank out and to the small beach as Nakamura watches from behind rocks, hiding. Wilson asks, "That's thing's a sub..and it flies?" Nelson tells them they have to check its hull. Ryan offers that the old Tetra remains have a sealing compound they can use. Seaview's nuclear reactor is running hot as the sub approaches the caves. Crane closes collision screens. They watch on the forward monitor as the cave tightens. Nakamura swims to the bottom of the Flying Sub, gets it open with a tool (how? Isn't it magnetically closed or something?). Frank recovers from his bump on the head. Flying Sub motors are okay, the leak stopped, and the excess water pumped out. Nelson tells Frank that the Flying Sub stores--chocolate and canned ham are good to men who ate fish and seaweed for 28 years. Nelson tells Ryan they have to leave as soon as the tide turns. Ryan and the others can't find Nakamura--and want to--he's saved all of them at one time or another, helped them survive. Wilson points Ryan out to Frank, who asked which one of them was Ryan. Frank goes to Ryan and punches him. Ryan is Frank's father. Frank's mother is dead...he says out of shame. Wilson points to the Flying Sub---it sinks and turns over! Nakamura is on a small hillside rock--telling Nelson and Frank they lied about Japan's defeat. He sunk the Flying Sub. Nelson gives Johnson some medicine. The volcano blows somewhat. Seaview is trying to fight the tidal current and goes into the rocky tunnel. Chip tells Crane that up ahead the tunnel narrows, "We're going to be jammed in!"

Act Four

Crane shoots a torpedo even though Chip thinks it is too close to do so. This opens the tunnel more. Frank was born one month after Ryan set sail, Ryan tells him. Hill deserted his post and the men who survived can verify this. None of this makes any difference to Frank. Nelson tells Ryan that when a man carries a belly full of hate--a few words won't change it right away. Hill deserted his post Ryan insists. The Navy may reopen the investigation and Nelson tells Ryan that it won't be necessary for Nakamura, Wilson, and Johnson to testify. Wilson comes out of the rocks with the caught Nakamura and begins to choke the life out of him. He chokes him against Johnson's sickly body. Johnson makes Wilson stop by telling him he is our friend. Nakamura asks Johnson for forgiveness. Johnson hears him and nods, then dies. Wilson and Nakamura reconcile. Nelson talks to Frank about the act of forgiveness they have just seen. Frank calls Ryan a coward and Nelson yells, "Do you think a coward could command a submarine? Or survive here for all these years?"Nakamura is quietly singing over Johnson's body and blames himself. Ryan tells him it's not true...Johnson would have died anyway. Wilson says, "None of us ever really expected to get out of here alive anyway."Crane calls to him, "Permission to come aboard!"Seaview is out 200 yards. Riley is with Crane. The volcano blows big time now! Ryan runs back for Nakamura who won't come with them in the raft. Frank and Nelson run to help them both into the raft. They row for their lives as the cave collapses. Seaview shakes. The lava blows high and the volcano explodes. Riley checks the seismograph, "Scratch one volcano."

Tag

Frank comes forward with Crane's permission. He and Ryan go aft to discuss their relationship. Nakamura tells Nelson about this happy reunion but their will be none for him. He will return to his country in disgrace. Nelson tells him he once read a poem by one of Nakamura's countrymen--a poem about spring and broken apple blossoms. Nakamura recites it, "In spring the broken apple blossom it flutters down, faded and forgotten, to hide its beauty in the cold earth and yet the pathetic apple blossom has a timeless flower and on another spring, will rise into a stronger tree."

Nelson tells him, "And that's the philosophy of your own people. Remember, many springs have come and gone since the war."Nakamura walks closer to the nose to see the water on the surface and the light of the sun. He looks back at Nelson and smiles. Nelson walks back into the control room, happy.

NOTES: One of the best, if not the best VOYAGEs. It has a happy message, action, good solid characterizations, and a well done story. Japanese soldiers had been found alive years after the war, hiding in the Pacific Islands and elsewhere. Several TV shows including THE TWILIGHT ZONE and THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN have picked up on this story but VOYAGE's AND FIVE OF US ARE LEFT is the best of its kind, better than both of those. Hayton's new Flying Sub music is very good and sounds very nautical and marine-like as well as a bit military. It fits the Flying Sub and VOYAGE perfectly. The shots and special effects of the Flying Sub careening over the islands and the crater are magnificent to look at. It is also very nice to see the underwater sequences and the sinking of the Flying Sub. Riley is a good character and it is too bad he wasn't kept on for seasons three and four. He made quite a contrast to the others.

THE CYBORG

Writer-William Read Woodfield

Dir-Leo Penn

Music-Alexander Courage

Teaser

Falkonmatt, Switzerland: Nelson is being shown around by Tabor Ulrich, a heavy set man in a gliding electronic chair, surrounded by technicians and servants. His memory unit stores knowledge and its sensors are have a faster reaction time than other computers and even man. The device is man's superior Ulrich maintains. Nelson admits some of the advantages but man is superior he maintains. Ulrich jokes that no cyborg has ever written a sonnet. A lump of foam covered clay is pressed by an overhead device--living organic tissue Ulrich maintains. Some are in the image of man. A Chinese lady tech shows a cyborg that looks like a regular man. Ulrich quotes the Bible, "Male and female created he them."Some pasty faced cyborgs emerge peculiar and must be destroyed in an ultra sonic furnace device. Nelson is shown one blown up between the two electronic poles.

Act One

Ulrich's castle is seen from outside and we hear some kind of pop sound on the soundtrack! Ulrich shows Nelson another marvel--a 6 foot across 5 foot high computer with a fantastic memory bank. The servant girl, blond, petite Gundy, puts it on. Hieroglyphic-like images and computations are imaged on the wall--all sensory data, some oral, some visual. Ulrich asks Nelson to give it his knowledge--like himself, Ulrich says, his child has a large appetite. 30 seconds is all it takes. Nelson jokes, "Sorry, this is one Swiss bank I don't want to make a deposit in."Ulrich laughs but makes two cyborgs grab Nelson to force him into doing it. They put him onto the device poles and it is painful as he fights it. He calls Ulrich over and over again (going insane, is he?). Morning--Ulrich slides into the room and Gundy follows. In a cage like area are more cyborgs--the derma plasium auto nervous system is there. The whole staff--men and women move about the room. They start it up again on Nelson who yells again (the same scene cut into this one for some reason) and calls Ulrich again! Foam is blown off the cyborg they are working on (as if giving it a haircut) and it has a face that is mannikin like. Soon, it looks exactly like Nelson. As its eyes open, the real Nelson stares manically at it.

Act Two

Nelson is dressed in white and in chains. Gundy gives him a restorative drink but he smashes it. Ulrich makes Admiral Nelson meet Admiral Nelson. Only Ulrich's Nelson lacks human frailties. The plan: to shape man's future to accept one world government run by unemotional cyborgs (hey, why not--the planet Vulcan did it)--no love, no hate, no fear or friendships. He wants a simple power structure. The cyborgs will run the world---"guided"by Ulrich as he sees fit. The cyborg Nelson flies the Flying Sub toward Seaview at the Nelson Institute. The cyborg calls Nelson Institute and receives Patricia--a somewhat Hawaiian or Oriental girl who directs traffic or something or other! She tells him to dock at South Heliport. Nelson tells Crane the Zurich peace conference is a powder keg but Crane thought he'd heard it was a success. At International Bionics, Nelson met Ulrich as he tells Lee and explains that the man is a genius. Lee asks if Ulrich is as fat as they say in one politically incorrect scene. Nelson says, "No, he's fatter,"and the two laugh about this. Sharkey is to bring up the computer which has seven thousand operational procedures. Seaview is to put out to sea. Ulrich is watching all this on a monitor screen. He gives the world 36 hours to defer this one world government to him and if they refuse, three of the world's cities will be destroyed by Seaview's nuclear missiles. The computer placed on Seaview by the cyborg is a simulator which will cut Seaview and all its communications off from the real world! All the info they receive will come from Ulrich's computer center in this mountain lab. Seaview will be hunted. Nelson's mind in the cyborg will direct Seaview's defense. Nelson appeals to Gundy to help and as he is offered food, he puts a knife up his sleeve. London, Paris, the Kremlin all get messages and answer. Nelson figures they told Ulrich to go....the US dispatched air and sea craft to find and sink Seaview and the other countries have responded in similar fashions. Seaview is being depth charged and shaken. A voice (Sparks' voice really) calls via the Con Sub pact (?) and tells Seaview that the peace conference failed. Cyborgs are directing all the answers that come back into Seaview. They tell Seaview they are on their own.

Act Three

Crash doors close and Seaview goes to 2000 feet. Crane calls a Mr. Wilson on the mike--the Seaview will go to the Arctic for cover. Nelson fights with one of the pasty faced non descript cyborg guards and stabs it in the upper chest. He gets the keys, tosses a body working into another cyborg, and turns the disintegrator pole toward the computer area. Ulrich returns (and it appears he is in a new chair of some kind) and cyborgs overpower Nelson. They put Nelson inside the sonic beam disintegrator and he cannot move out. Sparks puts Seaview's radio on and they get WJBT Boston--really the cyborg messages--which is a station supposedly going off the air. They also get Moscow, again all cyborgs. When they hear Russian, Crane asks Kowalski (a Russian Jew or Polish-Russian Jew perhaps?) what they are saying and Ski translates: they are telling people to go to fall out shelters for preparation for a nuclear attack. Crane rigs Seaview for war alert. Sharkey doesn't believe it. Crane wants to get Tish Sweetly (Patricia that we saw before) on the Vid Phone. The cyborgs reset the Nelson cyborg--he isn't sure who Tish is--since Crane is using her nickname. She is the radio operator at NIMR. (Why wasn't this info--info of a nickname put into the machine's mind?). On monitor screen, Tish reports of the end of everything but the report is a fake. Crane urges her to go to a shelter at once, not to wait around to save what she can at the Institute. She tells them she loves them (Crane and Nelson) both and leaves, crying. This Tish is a cyborg! It is coming remote from Ulrich's center! We also see many LOST IN SPACE monitors from season one. Ulrich tells Nelson the countries are begging him to launch the missiles. Nelson urges him not to do it. Crane gets his failsafe key out and so does the cyborg Nelson. There are four missiles. Ulrich will bypass failsafe--its designer made a donation to his cyborg machine. A nervous man in the control room fights Crane, not wanting the end of the world as we know it. He's not feeling fine! Sparks (in one of the first times we actually get to see the man stand up!) and Sharkey restrain the crewman, who ends up crying on Sharkey's shoulder. Nelson reprimands Crane for this. Sparks gets the US President who has ordered a strike back. Nelson's cyborg patches into the nuclear missiles. Nelson tells Ulrich that 15 million people will die. Ulrich says, "Unfortunate but there must be sacrifices."

Act Four

Crane wants to fire all four missiles but the cyborg tells him only three-he is holding the other one for a special target. New targets are Peking, Washington, and Moscow as Ulrich tells Nelson. The winds will bring fallout to all the Northern Hemisphere and half the population will die but Ulrich figures there will be some survivors. The Nelson cyborg is free thinking now and even if Ulrich wants to stop him, he claims he cannot. Ulrich can only make minor changes, it is the cyborg that controls his own mind. To kill it--which he can do--would be murder to Ulrich. Nelson laughs, "Killing millions of people is your way of ensuring peace but killing one of your cyborgs is murder! It doesn't make sense Ulrich!"Ulrich now wants to kill Nelson--he wasn't planning to but now, he will. Nelson asks Gundy to free him and he uses the key he stole from the cyborg earlier to blow one of the poles away from him. He runs out and grabs Ulrich's gun hand, eventually knocking him from the chair. He gets the gun away and asks Gundy how to kill the cyborg and reach Seaview. Nelson drives the glide car into the control area, smashing the glass cage. Gundy eventually sounds the alarm for Ulrich but Nelson is already at the main circuitry body board. Ulrich crawls toward the cage. Nelson uses code on the muscle reset and the cyborg Admiral begins tapping morse code on the Seaview map table! As Crane asks Nelson's cyborg who will they wait for orders from--no one is left--Washington has been destroyed and there is a provisional government. The cyborg tells him they will build a new world. Crane picks up the code--abort firing and kill Nelson! Nelson's cyborg stops Crane from ending the firing. The cyborg gets a gun and tells him they intend to fire on the other countries and the fourth is Washington! He empties the gun at them all but they duck, then gets a rifle. Crane shoots it in the face and it falls. Crane aborts the firing and then he and the crewmen see the machinery inside the head of the Nelson cyborg. Nelson is shooting the cyborgs that come into the room. Gundy tells him more will come and kill him--he must shoot the control unit. Nelson does and Gundy falls in smoke. Nelson calls to her as she deactivates--a cyborg herself. More cyborgs come in and fall also. Ulrich gets up and stands--then runs at Nelson---who throws him off him and into the control unit which blows up and kills Ulrich.

Tag

Lee and Crane wonder if a cyborg could ever really be human as they sit in the nose of Seaview. Nelson tells him Gundy was beginning to feel and react like a human. If she sounded the alarm before Nelson got through to Crane (actually she did) millions would have died. Crane figures Ulrich considered appetite a weakness--his own human weakness--the cyborgs never ate--even the Nelson cyborg didn't. They figure Gundy was more human than Ulrich.

NOTES: Alexander Courage turns in his best score ever--for this series and any other. It is simply scientifically haunting and menacing but also mysterious and paced. A great score used many times again in the future--and rightly so. It depicts great action sequences with moody and slower turns which fit nicely with a menace from science and it fits in even more with the later alien from space menaces. Victor Buono was a great villain and appeared as such in many series of the time: WILD, WILD WEST and BATMAN to name two. While this episode looks as if it was expensive--it was not--all the equipment was from existing sets such as LOST IN SPACE and past VOYAGEs, the set in Ulrich's was comprised of such as well as a black backdrop which was standard for any LOST IN SPACE alien ship interior, and the rest takes place mostly on Seaview, an already standing set. The nuclear threat as seen as a hoax is even scarier than the actual thing (DOOMSDAY) and I am surprised at Crane's willingness to retaliate in such a harsh way ("Let's give them everything we've got"). The failsafe motif ran from DOOMSDAY to others including DAY OF EVIL in season three, not a bad episode at all, nor is THE CYBORG.